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Devan Dubnyk makes 27 saves as lowly Oilers beat stumbling Sharks 5-1

The San Jose Sharks\' Patrick Marleau, left, releases a shot at the Edmonton Oilers\' Devan Dubnyk, during second period NHL hockey action in Edmonton on Sunday, March 21, 2010. THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Ulan
Author: The Hockey News

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Devan Dubnyk makes 27 saves as lowly Oilers beat stumbling Sharks 5-1

EDMONTON - Not even a game against the NHL's bottom feeders could keep the San Jose Sharks from continuing their tumble down the standings.

Devan Dubnyk made 27 saves to earn his second career NHL win in as many games as the last-place Edmonton Oilers skinned the Sharks 5-1 on Sunday.

Ryane Clowe scored the lone goal for the Sharks (43-19-10) who have now gone 0-5-1 in their last six games and were passed on the night by the Phoenix Coyotes for top spot in the Pacific Division to drop them down to fourth overall in the Western Conference.

"The frustration level is growing as the days go on," said Sharks head coach Todd McLellan. "We didn't really show a lot of emotion in the game until the end of it when it didn't really matter. I'm tired of hearing in our locker-room and around the team that adversity is good for us and will pay off in the end. It's not going to unless we dig ourselves out of it.

"There is something missing right now, and we have to figure what it is pretty darn quick."

San Jose goalie Evgeni Nabokov is hoping the loss to the 30th place team in the NHL is as bad as it can get.

"It was quite embarrassing to be honest, to lose that way," he said. "I don't know if this is rock bottom or not, but we are certainly hoping it is. Hopefully we can get back to climbing the hill after this. I think the confidence level is nowhere to be found right now and we have to find it."

Robert Nilsson, Dustin Penner, Fernando Pisani, Shawn Horcoff and Aaron Johnson scored the goals for the Oilers (23-42-7), who have started playing the role of spoilers of late, winning their second in a row following a Friday victory over Detroit.

Dubnyk was also between the pipes for that one, earning the rookie goalie his first ever NHL win in 14 appearances this season, before nearly adding his first shutout as well Sunday.

"When it was 5-0, the thought started to creep in," Dubnyk said.

"Just a little bit. I didn't get too excited about it. Maybe if I had 20 wins, I might have been a little more desperate to get my first shutout. I was just happy to get another win. Right now I'm just happy to have that winning feeling."

The Oilers in general are happy to throw a wrench into the plans of any playoff-bound team at the moment.

"This is as close to playoff hockey as we're going to get this year, playing teams that are battling for playoff spots," said Sam Gagner. "We want to treat these situations like playoff games for us, and in the future maybe pull from these experiences."

San Jose had most of the early pressure including a Joe Pavelski shot that hit the crossbar behind Dubnyk, but it was Edmonton that struck first, 11:10 into the opening frame. Nilsson poked the puck away from Joe Thornton at mid ice and went in alone, making a nice move on Nabokov to score his 10th and make it 1-0 Oilers.

Edmonton made it a two-goal game just over a minute later as the rebound from a Ryan Potulny shot caromed off of a Sharks defender to Penner on the doorstep and he was able to slam it home for his 100th career NHL goal.

San Jose had a terrific opportunity to cut into the lead with two minutes left as Dany Heatley had a clear lane to the net but couldn't slide it under a scrambling Dubnyk to keep it 2-0 after 20 minutes.

The Oilers went up 3-0 midway through the second period as Horcoff spotted Tom Gilbert in the slot, and while Nabokov was able to make a glove save on that shot, Pisani was in tight to lift home the rebound.

The Oilers put the game away with seven minutes left in the third as captain Ethan Moreau made a great pass through the crease to Horcoff at the other post to make it 4-0.

Edmonton made it a five-goal rout with five minutes left as Johnson scored on a shot from the point while the teams were playing four-aside.

The Sharks spoiled Dubnyk's shutout bid with just three minutes to play as Clowe snuck a puck between the goalie's skate and the post to make for a 5-1 final.

Both team are idle until Tuesday when the Oilers host Vancouver and the Sharks wrap up their thus far disastrous six-game road trip in Minnesota.

Notes: With just 51 points this season going into the game, the Oilers have been on pace to record their worst ever record. Their worst season as it stands was in 1992-93 when they went 26-50-8 for just 60 points. . . Edmonton's magic number to finish last in the NHL is a combination of their own losses and Toronto wins now equalling just five. . . Oiler defenceman Theo Peckham could be out for the rest of the year after suffering a separated shoulder late in the third on a hit into the boards by Doug Murray. . . Nabokov has struggled since the Olympics ended, coming into the game having allowed 26 goals in eight games and posting a 4.12 goals-against average in the team's last four games. . . Shark defenceman Marc-Edouard Vlasic returned to the lineup after missing the last 17 games with a lower body injury.

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Coyotes’ Cunningham alert, awake and joking with teammates, but remains in hospital

There’s still no word as to what exactly caused Coyotes AHL captain Craig Cunningham to collapse on ice, but the 26-year-old was in contact with teammates and cracking jokes earlier this week.

More than two weeks after collapsing on the ice ahead of an AHL game between the Coyotes and Jets AHL affiliates, news has come that Craig Cunningham is starting to get back to his old self.

According to Tucson’s KVOA, Cunningham spoke with two teammates, Brandon Burlon and Christian Fisher, via FaceTime earlier this week, and both said that things are starting to look up for the 26-year-old Cunningham.

Fisher added that it was nice to see Cunningham, the captain of the Coyotes’ AHL affiliate Tucson Roadrunners, smiling again. But he wasn’t just smiling, he was also trying to have a good time with his teammates while hinting that he wants to get back on the ice.

“He was cracking jokes just as if he were here the next day," Fisher told KVOA. "It was pretty funny. He said he wanted us to come pick him up and take him to the rink. He was joking around. Stuff like that.”

The mystery still remains as to what caused Cunningham’s collapse, however. It came just moments before the game was set to start and resulted in medical staff in the building cutting away his equipment in order to attend to him. Cunningham ended up leaving the ice on a stretcher, was transported to hospital and he remained in critical but stable condition for much of the past two weeks.

Still, though, Burlon and Fisher said that there’s no “definitive answer” as to what caused Cunningham’s medical emergency. That’s more than all right with both players, too, so long as Cunningham’s health is starting to look up.

"What we do know is that he is doing well and we are moving forward here," Fisher told KVOA. "Hopefully, he will start the road to recovery now.”

Cunningham has suited up for 319 AHL games over the course of his career, netting 101 goals and 203 points, as well as scoring an additional three goals and eight points in 63 NHL games. He was drafted 97th overall by the Bruins in 2010, but was picked up by Arizona off waivers from Boston during the 2014-15 season.

John Tavares scores with a move no one had ever done before

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John Tavares scores with a move no one had ever done before

The New York Islanders captain undressed Jay Bouwmeester in the most unusual of ways, but the important thing is he kept the puck. Then he buried it

John Tavares: good at hockey.

The New York Islanders captain pulled off an absolutely stunning series of moves last night, culminating in a laser-shot goal against St. Louis Blues goalie Jake Allen. But let's get back to his humbling of Olympic gold medallist Jay Bouwmeester, because that's where the real magic happened.

Witness, as Tavares puts his stick behind his back and grabs it with his other hand while still skating and fending off Bouwmeester. Then, since he is a patient boy, Tavares waits and waits and waits before firing one top corner on Allen:

As the soccer folks would say, lovely. New York would go on to beat the Blues 3-2, with Anders Lee scoring the other two goals for the Isles. After struggling to begin the season, New York is now 6-2-2 in its past 10 games. Tavares leads the squad with 21 points through 26 contests.

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ECHL defenseman Anthony Calabrese is “lucky to be alive” after a “careless, reckless” hit, and Tyler Murovich, who delivered the blow, has been given a 12-game suspension as a first-time offender.

There are few plays scarier than seeing a player hit from behind and sent headfirst into the boards. That kind of play is made that much harder to watch when knowing the severity of the injury suffered.

During an ECHL contest on Nov. 24 between the Norfolk Admirals and Atlanta Gladiators, ECHL veteran Tyler Murovich delivered an incredibly dangerous shove to the back of Anthony Calabrese, a 24-year-old defenseman who’s only 12 games into his ECHL career.

The result of the hit was frightening. Calabrese was left laying face down on the ice, near motionless. The Admirals rearguard would eventually be placed on a stretcher, taken from the ice and transported to hospital.

That may seem harsh to some given that Murovich is a first-time offender, but given the severity of Calabrese’s injury, it actually seems like a somewhat light punishment.

As a result of the hit, Calabrese suffered broken C7 and T1 vertebrae. In simpler terms, he broke both his neck and his back. Oh, and he also punctured his lung. In fact, Calabrese told The Virginian-Pilot’s Jim Hodges that doctors told the young center that he’s “lucky to be alive.”

“It was a miracle, and they say I’m going to make a full recovery,” Calabrese told Hodges. “It’s going to be a long road, but I’d rather be alive than be in a wheelchair the rest of my life.”

What helped Calabrese escape with his life, he told Hodges, was advice he had gotten early in his career from a high school coach. Calabrese was taught that if he was ever going into the boards head first to lift his chin and turn to the side in an attempt to avoid taking the brunt of the impact with the top of his head.

“That’s honestly the only thing that registered in my mind when I was going in: at the last minute, pick my head up,” Calabrese told Hodges. “I remember picking my head up and turning it to the right.”

Thankfully, doctors told Calabrese that he can eventually return to the ice and that the injuries suffered from the hit won’t cost him his career. His spinal cord, he told Hodges, wasn’t damaged due to the hit. And, as hard as it may be to believe, doctors said it was the “best possible break” in a situation such as Calabrese’s.

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Philip Larsen got knocked unconscious, the Canucks retailiated without knowing what happened, and they could have hurt their teammate even worse in the process.

The incident was horrific. We can all agree on that.

Tuesday night in New Jersey, Vancouver Canucks blueliner Philip Larsen skated behind his net to retrieve a puck. He had no idea Devils left winger Taylor Hall was pursuing the same puck. They collided heavily. Larsen bashed his head on the ice and was knocked out cold.

It was a scary scene, undoubtedly, one that understandably evoked a ton of emotion from Larsen's teammates. It was hardly a surprise to see a flurry of Vancouver players swarm Hall and make him fight.

It was a shame, however, for multiple reasons. First off, the hit wasn't dirty. It wasn't even a deliberate bodycheck. Hall leaned back on his skates to slow his momentum and held out his arms as if protecting himself from imminent impact. It was more of a crash than a bonecrushing hit. We can debate whether Larsen's head was the principal point of contact – I don't believe it was at all – but it's irrelevant when assessing Hall's guilt. There was no intent there. He won't be disciplined by the NHL for an accident.

And yet, thanks to the sport's culture of immediate and forceful vengeance, Hall had to fight anyway. In the spur of the moment, in the heat of elite competition, players are simply too jacked up to take a breath and assess the situation. They see a comrade fall and, in mere milliseconds, seek and destroy whoever caused the harm.

“You always have a problem with a hit when one of your guys gets hit hard," Canucks coach Willie Desjardins told the Vancouver Province's Jason Botchford after the the game. "It doesn’t matter if it’s a clean hit. You have a problem when a guy gets hit that hard. I think all coaches would.”

The ironic thing about this tough-guy mentality is that it could end up pushing one of the toughest things about hockey out of the game: good, clean hits. If the swarm mentality goes on much longer, the only guys willing to lay opponents out with big hits will be those ready and willing to drop the gloves right afterward. Sooner or later players might decide it's not worth sitting five minutes and/or risking injury just to put a lick on a guy. And, in Hall's case, he wasn't even trying to drill Larsen.

Will we ever stop seeing players attacked after clean hits? I doubt it. The revenge assault is a crime of passion, a snap decision. But maybe, just maybe, the Canucks and players all over the world can learn a bit from what happened right after Larsen got hit. Watch:

The first instinct, sadly, is not to help Larsen, but to destroy Hall. Center Michael Chaput immediately starts a fight. That causes a pileup of players from both teams – all around the unconscious Larsen. It's downright disturbing to see him getting kicked in the head by his own teammates’ skates. Canucks goalie Jacob Markstrom tries to box out Larsen and keep him safe. Markus Granlund tries as well but has to step over and onto Larsen in the process. It’s a miracle Larsen wasn’t cut. None of that would've happened had Chaput thought of Larsen first.

The ugly scene is a reminder that, right after a teammate takes a massive hit, the first priority should be to protect him. The best way to do that isn't to attack his attacker. It's to attend to the teammate first. There's plenty of time to review what happened and take down the perpetrator's number for later in the game. That's what jumbo-tron replays are for. And, in cases like Hall's, the violence would be averted altogether if players watched the replay and realized it was an accident.

Sadly, the idea is a pipe dream, and I don’t expect players to learn from Larsen's fate anytime soon. But we can always hope.